Censorship Ally VineSight Flags True Social Media Posts As ‘Toxic’ Misinformation
BY: TRISTAN JUSTICE | OCTOBER 18, 2023
Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/10/18/censorship-ally-vinesight-flags-true-social-media-posts-as-toxic-misinformation/
TRISTAN JUSTICE
VISIT ON TWITTER@JUSTICETRISTAN
A “disinformation” group is out with new reports flagging online information as “misinformation” for corporate tech giants known for censoring such info — even if the content is true.
VineSight, a Tel Aviv-based tech company with offices in New York, relies on artificial intelligence (AI) to scan the internet for “toxic narratives” and “misinformation.” A thorough examination of the company’s recent reports, however, reveals so-called “toxic narratives” and “misinformation” are synonymous with conservative arguments and inconvenient truths.
The company’s report on clean energy, for example, highlights a post from a “bot-like” account as misinformation that reads, “China emits the most CO2.” The statement, however, is verifiably true. China is by far the world’s largest producer of carbon dioxide emissions on the planet and has been for almost two decades.
VineSight’s clean energy report also highlights statements from human accounts as misinformation including, “Climate advocates are hypocrites,” and “[electric vehicles] repeatedly catch on fire.” Climate advocates, however, are often hypocrites when they endlessly lecture about fossil fuels while flying to glitzy conferences courtesy of private air travel. And electric vehicles, including bikes and scooters, are seeing a rise in spontaneous combustion triggered by the malfunction of lithium-ion batteries.
On Facebook, allegedly misleading viral topics include a claim from conservative radio host Glenn Beck saying an “EV battery factory needs fossil fuels to run” and another from Breitbart that “Biden’s green policies benefit China.” But studies have shown that electric vehicles are worse for the environment than their gas-powered counterparts — in part because of the pollution-inducing production of lithium-ion batteries, a market China dominates. In other words, the more President Joe Biden subsidizes rich Americans buying electric vehicles, the more Beijing stands to profit.
Almost every energy-related statement VineSight flagged in its “misinformation” report is backed by either an outright truth or, at minimum, evidence to support the claim. For example, VineSight identified as misinformation a statement attributed to former President Donald Trump that went viral on TikTok: “The Green New Deal is the Destruction of Our Country.” The Green New Deal is a far-left proposal to radically reengineer the nation’s economy and power grid to prioritize climate change above all else. Residents in California are already suffering the effects of state officials implementing aspects of the Green New Deal on a local level; frequent blackouts and strict rules on water use are the new norm.
[READ: Welcome To The Green New Deal, California]
VineSight’s reports on climate change and voter fraud are not much different. Its climate change report this month flagged topics such as “climate change is a hoax” and “there is no climate crisis” as top examples of viral misinformation. Yet earlier this year, a Nobel Prize-winning scientist became the second Nobel laureate to sign a declaration with more than 1,600 other scientists that emphatically says, “There is no climate emergency.”
“Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific,” reads the declaration, organized by the Climate Intelligence Foundation. “Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.”
Another climate “topic” written off as disinformation by the misinformation group is, “China opens a new coal transportation network.” Yet here’s a headline from National Public Radio (NPR) in March: “China is building six times more new coal plants than other countries, report finds.”
A VineSight press release in May celebrated the firm’s updated disinformation technology to “not only identify and alert organizations to disinformation attacks faster but also help mitigate, counter-message, takedown or label content before it damages a company’s reputation and business.”
“Today VineSight’s premier solution is used by major Fortune 500 brands including financial, manufacturing and pharmaceutical institutions, political campaigns, and other causes across the globe,” the company wrote.
The same press release highlights how “VineSight works with the terms of service of each social platform and where possible, get [sic] messages labeled or removed, to counteract any attacks or minimize virality.” In other words, by VineSight’s own admission, it shares its reports with major tech platforms to flag posts for censorship.
The company also admits its concerns about “disinformation” are related to election outcomes. “Disinformation is disrupting the legitimacy of the election process, threatening democracy, and allowing extremist views to become prevalent,” VineSight said in its May press release.
VineSight’s “tracking report” on voter fraud identified conservative themes on election integrity as “viral misinformation and toxic narratives.”
Here are a few The Federalist’s Editor-in-Chief Mollie Hemingway highlighted on X:
The topics also included “allowing illegal immigrants to vote is an insult to Americans,” and “MAGA movement was able to make election fraud a top voters issue.” The group also flagged the topic: “the 2020 election was stolen and now Democrats are trying to interfere with 2024.”
Democrats did of course rig the 2020 election — a conspiracy they’ve admitted to — by way of exploiting Covid-19 to transform “Election Day” into election season with the radical expansion of mail-in voting, the least secure format to conduct elections. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also dumped some $350 million into the leftist nonprofit Center for Tech and Civic Life, which funded and staffed local government election offices. These dollars flowed overwhelmingly to the blue areas of swing states, effectively making the operation a Democrat get-out-the-vote effort.
Then there was the collusion of Big Tech and the media, which openly suppressed blockbuster stories surrounding the corruption of the Democratic nominee and his involvement in his son’s potentially criminal overseas business ventures. Hemingway wrote an entire 448-page book documenting the myriad ways Democrats rigged the 2020 contest.
As for the upcoming election, Trump, now the Republican front-runner in his third run for the White House, is faced with 91 felony indictments just over a year ahead of the next election. On Monday, the leading candidate for the GOP nomination was slapped with a gag order from an activist judge who effectively barred the former president from even campaigning against his top political opponent: the federal government. It bars Trump from publicly defending himself against attacks from potential witnesses, court personnel, or his federal prosecutors, including Special Counsel Jack Smith. According to VineSight, none of that constitutes election interference. Saying as much is amplifying “misinformation.”
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